Did some shooting today...

Decided since it wasn't that windy, to take advantage and test a few loads I had loaded up. I had quite a bit of loads to test out of my 7 RM, just out of boredom I suppose..Dont really need to find any more loads, just looking for something to do more then anything...I had some 160g Speer BT loaded with RL-22 from 63-65g. I also had 162g SST loaded with, 61-62g RL-22, 69-70g Retumbo, and 67g H-1000. ALso had 160g AB w/60.5g and 61g RL-22, also had 120g NBT w/71.5g RL-22.

I shot the Speer 160's first and noted that they were pretty hot starting at 63g. I should have known because every other 160g bullet shoots great at around 61g w/RL-22 at 2900fps. Well 63g was shooting 3025fps and was already opening up group wise (about 1.5")..63.5g was even worse at 3050fps, getting a little warm as well..64g shot decent, about .75"-1" at 3075fps, but the bolt was prety stiff after these shots, I decided to stop there. 64.5g and 65g are going to get pulled...

Here is the 64g/RL-22, Velocity was 3074,3060,3087

I decided to shoot a few loads I had with the 160g AB. I had a good load worked up with 61g RL-22, but it gave somewhat erratic grouping..So I tried going down to 60.5g and I also moved the seating depth around .010". The 61g load shot a lot better then the 60.5g load, about .75" and the shorter OAL seemed to help..

Here is the 61g/RL-22 Velocity 2906,2912,2897

Next was the 162g SST's. I had these bullets left over from my 7 STW, and I had some xtra Retumbo/H1000 laying around, So I decided I would load a few preliminary rounds.
I tried 61-62g RL-22 and they shot ok, they put 2 in and 1 out, probly need to work with seating depth. Velocity is right in there at 2900fps, right where it usually likes to be anyways...Next I tried 69 and 70g Retumbo. Again, it did 2 in and 1 out, so thats got me thinking definately work on seating depth, velocity was like 3050 w/Retumbo, standard deviation was good with REtumbo as well. Next I only had enough cases for 1 load with H1000, so I picked 67g and went with that..I loaded up 4 shells for this load and it put 3 in and 1 out...I didn't get to cronograph this load as it was nearing dark and my cheap ass crony dont work as it gets late...

I also found (3) 120g NBT's so I decided to laod up a quick load with 71.5g RL-22, it put 2 in and 1 out, about .75". Didn't get to crono them either, but should be shooting around 3500fps or so..Would be dynamite on coyotes though!!

Rem-man,
Hey before I moved over to my 257wby I used my 7mm RM and 120g vmax's and bal tip on dogs...I have to say I flip a may of 'em over and left most all of them hanging out side their selfs...nice groups by the way!
heck we should trade some eastern Oregon for some eastern WA varmint shooting

Yah I only shot 1 coyote with a 120g NBT and that was out of a 7 STW at about 100 yards. I'm sure you can imagine what it looked like...

We dont have that many varmints around where I live. If anything we have more coyotes then rockchucks or squirrels. Every time I see a chuck, I take a mental note of it, theres not many around here. I"ve only shot at the most 7-8 over the couple years I've noticed them.. If you wanna shoot little ground squirrels, you can go around La Grande or Baker which is only about 1-1.5 hours from here and you can spend pretty much all day in 1 field shooting them little guys. I didnt make it last year or this year though...To busy chasing bears and doing other things...